SAA 10 033. A Mongoose Under the King’s Chariot (ABL 0385) [from astrologers]
| Obverse | ||
| o 1o 1 | (1) To the king, my lord: your servant Issar-šumu-ereš. Good health to the king, my lord! May Nabû and Marduk bless the king, my lord! | |
| o 22 | ||
| o 33 | ||
| o 44 | ||
| o 55 | ||
| o 66 | (6) As to what the king, my lord, wrote to me: "Does (the omen) '(If something) passes between the legs of a man' apply to something that came out from underneath a chariot?" — it does apply. | |
| o 77 | ||
| o 88 | ||
| o 99 | ||
| o 1010 | ||
| o 1111 | (11) The king, my lord, say[s]: "'The legs of a m[an]' (means) 'legs' (only) when (something literally) emerges between a man's (legs); that [mongoose passed] between [...]" — perhaps [...] | |
| o 1212 | ||
| o 1313 | ||
| o 1414 | ||
| o 1515 | ||
| o 1616 | is—⸢su-ri x⸣+[x x x] | |
| o 1717 | ⸢x⸣+[x x] ⸢x x⸣ [x x x] | |
| Bottom | ||
| b.e.b.e. | broken away | |
| Reverse | ||
| r 1r 1 | (r 1) We still take it as a portent. The [mongoose] pa[ssed] from the left to the right and em[erged] from underneath the chariot. As for 'the legs of a m[an]' about which the king, my lord, s[poke], this is the [relevant] int[erpretation]: | |
| r 22 | ||
| r 33 | ||
| r 44 | ||
| r 55 | ||
| r 66 | ||
| r 77 | ||
| r 88 | (r 8) If a mongoose pa[sses] bet[ween] the legs of a man, the hand of a god or the hand of a king will seize him. | |
| r 99 | ||
| r 1010 | ||
| r 1111 | (r 11) Let us say 'mercy' for the Nabataeans. Why? — Are they not hostile kings? They will not submit beneath the chariot of the king, my lord! | |
| r 1212 | ||
| r 1313 | ||
| r 1414 | ||
| r 1515 | ||
| r 1616 |
Adapted from Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (State Archives of Assyria, 10), 1993. Lemmatised by Mikko Luukko, 2016, as part of the research programme of the Alexander von Humboldt Chair in the Ancient History of the Near and Middle East at LMU Munich (Karen Radner, Humboldt Professorship 2015). The annotated edition is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0. Please cite this page as http://oracc.org/saao/P334261/.